February 11, 2018 -- Last year’s most dominant Top Fuel team, winner of a category best eight NHRA Mello Yello tour events including the U.S. Nationals, is going to exercise its option and take a mulligan.

After a bout of premature acceleration in the second round of Sunday’s incident-plagued 58th annual Lucas Oil Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway, Texan Steve Torrence assembled his Capco Contractors team and declared the season’s first race null and void.

“We’re throwing it away,” said the 16-time tour winner. “We’re gonna start over at Phoenix (in the 38th annual Arizona Nationals two weeks hence). This is a championship-caliber team but even the best have frustrating days and this definitely was one of those. We’re putting it all behind us and we’ll come back in two weeks and double-team these guys with my car and my dad’s.”

After beating Steve Faria of Tulare, Calif., in round one, the 34-year-old Torrence suffered one of those rare “oops” moments in round two, illuminating the red light indicating a false start against close friend, fierce rival and three-time series champion Antron Brown.

Despite that misstep, Torrence will move on to Arizona and Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Parks in fifth place in the Mello Yello standings.